Saturday, May 19, 2007

What Is the President Thinking?

As this piece in The Washington Times makes clear, President Bush has tacked left on immigration to make common cause with Teddy Kennedy, bypassing onetime allies like Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

It's hard to figure out what the President is thinking. Surely he doesn't want to alienate the Republican base -- just about the only constituency that defends him when it comes to the Iraq war. And it's truly remarkable that he'd broker a deal with Teddy Kennedy on immigration, given the way that Kennedy condemned the President on the No Child Left Behind legislation even after Kennedy got his way on most of the legislation's important provisions.

What's most annoying, perhaps, is the White House's insistence that it will enforce the tougher immigration security measures supposedly contained in the bill. Based on past performance, this is simply a difficult proposition to believe. Take just one statistic -- Congress allocated money for 700 miles of border fencing. Only two have been constructed. Doesn't that -- coupled with its support for effective amnesty -- tell someone something about the administration's seriousness about immigration enforcement?